About 4 days ago, I wrote about EA’s new Anti-Cheat system that is able to access your non-volatile memory to spot malicious software. The story got covered by multiple publications and many of you shared it on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and discussed what’s going on. Interestingly, the article also reached a professional “Reverse Engineer” with experience in analyzing Anti-cheat measures as a hobby/enthusiast, and he shared some rather insightful but concerning details about EA’s “unknown” and “secret” Anti-Cheat system. First off, the Electronic Arts Anti-Cheat system has been in the work for a while, in fact, it is implemented in Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V already. The first known sighting of this anti-cheat system was back in December 2017 on a hacking forum. However, according to our source, at the time the “modules were in very early stages of development, and not very sophisticated.” EA created the system to counter…

Electronic Arts is working on a new anti-cheat system that’ll help deal with cheaters. The hope is to reduce the number of cheaters in games like Star Wars Battlefront, Apex Legends, and Battlefield. The anti-cheat system will access volatile memory to analyze if there is any malicious software running on your system. For the less tech-savvy, let us explain what a volatile memory is. It is basically your RAM EA is going to access to observe what’s running on your PC during gameplay. EA’s anti-cheat system was spotted by RespawnFirst in a patent filed on October 1st, 2019 at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patent describes the Electronic Arts’ anti-cheat system as follows: An anti-cheat system may be accessed over a network and stored directly into volatile memory of a user computing system. In some embodiments, this anti-cheat system may scan, or access portions of, the volatile…

One of the companies known for its notorious monetization structures is EA. The company is behind some of the most successful titles in the world, namely FIFA, Madden NFL,  Battlefield, and Need for Speed. Over the years Electronic Arts has successfully used various monetization models in its video games. Electronic Arts constantly looks for new ways to boost its in-game purchases revenue; be it the frowned upon Battlefront 2 loot boxes, FIFA  Ultimate Team cards,  or Madden NFL’s monetization system. Fans are usually pretty steamed about how EA handles in-game monetization and I doubt this new technique is going to be taken well too. Although it’s just a system that “facilitates” in-game purchases, knowing EA we can be fairly certain that the “facilitation” will be quite aggressive. The patent that was filed at the United States Patents and Trademarks Office on October 1st, 2019 revealed EA’s possible future plans for…

EA adds shady loot boxes in its games that are often predatory. The company got into a lot of trouble for its gambling mechanics. Gambling commissions cracked down on loot boxes after how EA handled Battlefront 2. The game featured aggressive and predatory microtransactions. Riddled with Loot Boxes, Battlefront 2 sparked worldwide outrage and debate. Various Governments had to intervene to investigate the gaming industry. This is why EA is now standing in front of the UK Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport Committee. In a recent statement, EA talked about loot boxes and referred to them as “ethical” which is surprising keeping in mind how many commissions see this gambling. Kerry Hopkins, EA’s VP of legal and government affairs claimed that these aren’t loot boxes. According to EA’s new definition, these are “surprise mechanics.” It seems like a tactic to counter the negativity surrounding the term “loot boxes.”The new…